


intrepid explorers of romantic cartography

by trench



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: F/F, Friendship, M/M, Obliviousness, like to a concerning degree
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-21 19:22:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30026655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trench/pseuds/trench
Summary: “We are on a mission,” Adrien declares. “A mission of love!”Plagg’s glowing green eye slits open. “You’re finally gonna tell Dip Dye how you feel?”Adrien’s face goes hot. “Not that,” he says, shoving aside the sudden squirminess in his stomach. “We have to figure out how to get Marinette and Ladybug together.”Plagg’s ears perk up. “Marinette...and Ladybug?”“Yeah, are you even listening? Marinette told me she’s into Ladybug. And I know Ladybug! I can set them up!”Plagg says chokes down giggles. “Marinette said she likes Lady- Lady- LadybAHAHAHA!”Adrien scrubs his hands through his hair. “What’s so funny about it!”What's so funny, indeed.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Luka Couffaine, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug/Kagami Tsurugi
Comments: 7
Kudos: 94
Collections: Adrichat February 2021 Exchange





	intrepid explorers of romantic cartography

**Author's Note:**

  * For [theriveroflight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theriveroflight/gifts).



> river, here’s a bunch of mlm/wlw solidarity and ridiculous misunderstandings for you! i didn’t stick exactly to your prompt so i hope you like it, bc you’re the best and you deserve fic you like <3 there are two more chapters so those will be coming this week, just wanted to get this up for the end of the exchange!

Marinette sighs through the doorway, sighs down the stairs, and sighs into her seat at the lunch table. She pauses for a beseeching stare out into the middle distance before sighing her lunch out of her backpack and sighing her sandwich into her mouth.

Adrien elbows Nino. “What’s up with Marinette?”

“Barrette?” Nino says way too loudly, tinny music thumping from his headphones.

Alya, who’s sharing Nino’s headphones, pulls out an earbud.

“Girl.” Alya raises her eyebrows. “You’ve been so mopey lately. Are you sick?”

“No,” sighs Marinette. “And I’d love if everyone stopped asking me that.”

 _Love._ It clicks. Wistful sighs, dreamy gazes, fluttery stomach. Adrien knows exactly what Marinette’s come down with: lovesickness.

He’s caught a similar strain himself during his Kitty Section practices lately, and he has no clue what to do about it. Say, “Hey, you’re hot, I’m hot, let’s be hot together and maybe hold hands?” No way. Well, maybe he could translate that into some kind of soul-baring piano chord. He does know his audience. 

It’s impossible. An up and coming musician must get love confessions all the time. It’s probably the equivalent of a verbal spam email to Luka. Still...there’s only so much prolonged eye contact and late night guitar lessons a boy can take before he starts to wonder. But Adrien can feel a distance still between them, and always, the mask. The side of himself that he has to keep secret. Even if he worked up the courage to be honest, there’s no getting around that.

But.

Marinette doesn’t have his problems. She’s an amazing person and anyone would be lucky to be her crush. She never has trouble speaking her mind. And more importantly, she has nothing to hide. She can be her full self in a relationship. 

Maybe Adrien can help her even if he can’t help himself.

He waits for Alya to give Marinette one last one skeptical look and return to sharing headphones with Nino to strike.

“So.” Adrien scoots himself down the bench and sidles up beside Marinette. “Who is it?”

Marinette squints at him as she chews. “Huh?” 

He leans in and lowers his voice as she takes another big bite. “Who’s your crush?”

“Mmpf!” Marinette spews sandwich and waves her arms. “Cruth? Uh-uh!” As she tries to talk a bit of lettuce falls from her mouth onto Adrien’s jeans. He delicately flicks it off. Marinette goes bright red and chews at top speed, flailing her hands and shaking her head all the while.

“Take your time,” Adrien says. “Romance can’t be rushed.”

Marinette gulps and glares. “I do _not_ have a crush.”

Adrien mentally ticks through the people she spends time with. “Do I know him?” 

He thinks she’s going to brush him off again. Her eyes dart to Alya and her mouth pulls into a frown. But she surprises him. She squares her shoulders and mutters, “Her. Do you know _her.”_

It’s his turn to blush. “Right, shouldn’t have assumed. But, do I? Know her?”

Marinette fidgets. “We can’t talk about this here. If Alya finds out...”

Adrien’s forehead wrinkles. “I’m sure she’d be supportive.”

“Exactly. She’d be _too_ supportive. She’ll hype me up, convince me it’s mutual, and come up with a dozen ways for me to confess. And I’ll end up in a tux with a rose between my teeth on a yacht in the Seine at sunset, being let down gently.”

Adrien frowns. What’s unappealing about a rose between your teeth? “I think you’re making several unlikely leaps there.”

“I know Alya better than you.” 

Well, fair. But… “So you’re just not going to do anything about it?”

Marinette slumps onto the table. “Why should I? She doesn’t like me like that.”

Adrien sighs. “Yeah, I know the feeling.”

Her head whips back up. “Oh? You like someone too?”

“We’re talking about _your_ wallowing love life, not mine.”

“Don’t think I won’t weasel it out of you. I have tactics.”

“So do I. Tell me who it is or I’ll tell Alya you’ve been keeping a crush from her.“

“Oh my god, you’re evil!”

“Yes I am.” He laces his fingers and leans forward, grinning. “So. Who is it?”

Marinette grumbles. Her eyes swing back to Alya, weighing her options. Adrien is pretty sure Alya already knows Marinette likes someone. After all, Marinette is right that the pair of them are closer to each other than anyone, and Marinette isn’t exactly known for her subtlety. So if Alya is keeping mum for some reason, Adrien is more curious than ever. 

“You’re not gonna drop it, are you,” Marinette says.

“Nope,” Adrien says cheerfully.

She pulls on her pigtails. “Argh. Okay, I’ll tell you, just—hey! No fistpumping or the deal’s off!“

Adrien drops his hand immediately.”I’m done.”

“You better be. And it goes without saying you can’t tell anybody this.” She glances meaningfully at Alya, still absorbed in Nino’s phone.

“I won’t,” he promises. Not that Alya isn’t already aware, but he senses it would not be his brightest idea to say so.

“And no interfering.”

Adrien crosses his fingers behind his back. “Who, me? Never.”

She narrows her eyes at him. “Riiight.”

“Well?” He leans in and drops his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Who is she?”

And finally, after a last moment of hesitation, Marinette takes a deep breath and starts to spill.

Adrien leaves lunch with his head spinning and a plan forming.

Marinette has a crush on Ladybug.

She refused to admit it outright, even with Adrien’s pointed questions. But once he cracked the shell of her secret, her feelings started pouring out and the pieces started fitting into place. 

If he wasn’t Chat Noir, the idea probably wouldn’t have occurred to him in a million years. But Adrien understands that heroes aren’t nearly as inaccessible as they seem to the general public, and he knows firsthand how easy it is to become infatuated with Ladybug, even if his own experience was more his confused oops-very-much-not-straight heart fixating on his first close relationship with a girl. 

“She’s strong and brave and decisive,” Marinette had sighed, staring dreamily into space. “She always makes time to hang out with me even though her lessons must keep her really busy and her mom is pretty controlling of her schedule. When I’m with her it’s like there’s nothing else around, and sometimes when she picks things up I can see her arms flexing. And she looks amazing in red.”

Strong. Brave. Decisive. _Red._ “Oh my god,” Adrien gasped. “You have a crush on—!” 

Marinette’s hand clapped over his mouth. Adrien garbled into her fingers as Marinette frantically hissed, “Shut _up,_ Alya and Nino are right there!”

So of course then the bell rang, jarring their friends into looking up and taking in the standoff between Marinette’s palm and Adrien’s valiantly attempting vocal chords. Marinette kept her hand mashed firmly on his face even as she propped her chin on her free hand and breezed, “Hey guys, what’s up?”

“...Nothing much,” Nino said. A suspicious flash went off from Alya’s direction, followed by a cackle. “How ‘bout you?”

All in all, Adrien thinks he pulled the whole thing off with as much tact and discretion as anyone can expect from a fifteen year old boy who regularly flips across rooftops in a catsuit. And as he swaps out his books in his lockers and catches sight of the little kwami napping on his duffle bag, he can’t stop the bubbling excitement that he may be the single perfect person to help Marinette. Because his whole messy sublimation of his real feelings onto Ladybug took a while to sort out, but the awkward vulnerable process of figuring it out with her brought them closer than ever, and gave him a piece of key information. 

Ladybug’s type is dark-haired, headstrong girls.

No matter what Marinette had said, he practically has a _duty_ to interfere.

Operation: MariBug is a go.

Adrien reaches into his pocket and pulls out a grumpily-woken Plagg the second his bedroom door closes behind him. “Plagg, I will give you a hundred wheels of cheese, I will let you sleep in late every day, I will let you add whiskers to the suit, if you just help me with this one thing.”

“I already told you, I’m not translating obscure manga for you,” Plagg says, curling up in his palm and tucking his tail over his nose.

“Not that.” Though Adrien will be revisiting that request, with more bribes if necessary. “We are on a mission. A mission of love!”

One glowing green eye slits open. “You’re finally gonna tell Dip Dye how you feel?”

Adrien’s face goes hot. “Not that either,” he says, shoving aside the sudden squirminess in his stomach. “We have to figure out how to get Marinette and Ladybug together.”

Plagg’s ears perk up. “Marinette...and Ladybug?”

“Yeah, are you even listening? Marinette told me she’s into Ladybug. And I know Ladybug! I can set them up!”

“Marinette told...that’s who you thought…Ladybug?” Plagg stares at him for a long beat. And then bursts out laughing.

“What?” Adrien says, affronted, as Plagg laughs so hard he rolls right off Adrien’s hand to spasm in midair. “Is it so weird Marinette would tell me? I mean, I guess I went a little overboard with the Alya thing.” He forgets that not everyone will push back on him like Ladybug does if he starts to be too much.

“No,” Plagg says, choking down giggles. “One hundred percent normal for Marinette to say she likes Lady- Lady- LadybAHAHAHA!”

Adrien scrubs his hands through his hair. “What’s so funny about it!”

That just sets Plagg off again. He wheezes, pounding his tiny fists on Adrien’s chest. “It’s too good! I can’t take it!” 

“Fine, I’ll figure it out by myself,” Adrien says, marching away from Plagg to flop onto his bed. Being left out of the joke always makes him feel like _he’s_ the joke, even if he can’t see what he could have possibly done to make Plagg laugh so hard he’s gasping for air. “It’s rude to make fun of people’s emotions, you know.”

“I’m not making fun!” Plagg protests. At Adrien’s raised eyebrow, he amends, “Well, I’m always making fun. Not of you specifically.” Adrien’s other eyebrow goes up. “Okay, _yes,_ of you specifically. But I never said I wouldn’t help.”

“You will?” Adrien asks eagerly. “You’ll help me come up with a plan?”

“The best plan the world has ever seen.”

Adrien turns his head away. “You’re still not sincere.”

“I am, I am,” Plagg says, floating closer. He drops onto the pillow by Adrien’s shoulder. “I really, honestly, no funny business, want to help.”

Adrien looks at Plagg, his own personal little ball of chaos, his irritation already fading. “Maybe a little funny business,” he says, smiling. “So you’ll do it?”

Plagg’s face is finally serious, but there’s still a worrisome gleam in his eye.

“Kid,” Plagg says solemnly. “I’ll try harder to set up Marinette and Ladybug than I’ve ever tried at anything in my entire cosmic life.”


End file.
